


Something Lost ((Fic abandoned))

by thesleepdeprived



Series: Something Lost/Something Missing/Something Found [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Bad Wolf, Book series, F/F, F/M, Gen, Lesbian Character, Multi-plot, Nonbinary Character, Original Characters - Freeform, Other, Season 1, Something Lost, multi-chapter, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-13 15:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3387434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepdeprived/pseuds/thesleepdeprived
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"H-hello? Is this on? Listen, the Doctor told me to give you this message. Your life may depend on this, please remember- Time is wrong. Rose Tyler is dead before her time, and time is slowly collapsing as a result. Me and a few others are working to fix that at the moment, but, please, please remember-" She’s gone. AU-ish of season 1 finale onward. Not DoctorXOC. (Transgender, lesbian, nonbinary characters.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning: Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: "H-hello? Is this on? Listen, the Doctor told me to give you this message. Your life may depend on this, please remember- Time is wrong. Rose Tyler is dead before her time, and time is slowly collapsing as a result. Me and a few others are working to fix that at the moment, but, please, please remember-" She’s gone. Not DoctorXOC. Contains transgender, lesbian, nonbinary, and bisexual characters. If you dislike any of those, stay in your lane and get off my fic.
> 
> Rated: PG-13 for slight swearing, and just to be safe.
> 
> Triggers: I will be doing these by chapter, but overall this fic will contain touchy subjects such as homophobia and transphobia in nearly every story arc. Please stay safe and if you are at all triggered by these subjects, you should find another fic. Your mental health always means more to me than notes :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Doctor Who. I do, however, own all characters created by me. (Sophia, Maya, etc)
> 
> This chapter was last edited on 2/13/15. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1

She was burning.

Rose could feel the whole of time ripping through her, destroying her, changing her.

Suddenly, the smooth metal floor and walls all around meant nothing. The deadly creatures all around, screaming, calling her the abomination that she was. They were nothing. She could see all that is, was, could be, and what must not.

Her eyes opened, and they blazed golden. Her blonde hair whipped around her in a wind only she could feel, and her fair skin held an unearthly glow. She spoke to the man who had given her this power, however indirectly, telling him of how she was saving him. He wept at her feet, begging her to stop, to let go of the power that was killing her. The power she wasn’t meant to have.

Rose knew it was too late for that.

She spoke of how she would die here, because the Bad Wolf had already taken over her mind. There was no Rose left, just the Wolf.

And so the Wolf continued on, destroying all those who threatened her best friend. She knew there was a way for him to save her, take his power back. But he didn’t know. She brought life, in all this destruction, to another man, a hero.

The Wolf could feel something, nagging at the edge of her vast consciousness. She ignored it. After all, she could afford to do so. There were far more interesting things in this universe to see.

All she could see now, in what she knew were her final moments was her savior, her best friend, her entire life, begging for her to let go.

She was sobbing, so terrified of death.

But she could not. Not even for him.

The nagging feeling grew stronger. Something was wrong, so, so wrong…

She caught it.

There was only one thing to do, and she reached out, grabbing someone at random. She saw their face for only a moment before she died. Perfect, she thought.

Time was wrong. Every moment of the future was burning, collapsing because of what she hadn’t done. Rose let a tear slip down her cheek, it was the only thing left she had the strength to do. She was gone.

My eyes snapped open, taking in the pale orange light trickling in through the curtains. It stayed like this a while, me staring up at the ceiling and it staring back. I thought over my dream, definitely one of my weirder ones. Where the hell had my mind gotten ‘Bad Wolf’ from, anyway? Thinking this over, I rolled over on my side, coming face-to-face with my alarm clock. It was 8:45.

"Damn!" I swore, diving out of bed and nearly falling over as I pulled on a pair of jeans. I ran a brush through my hair while simultaneously trying to button up a frilly blue blouse with one hand. As I ran out the door, I stuffed half a bagel in my mouth as an afterthought.

Ah. Don’t you just love mornings?

I started up my rust bucket of a truck, and made my way out to the main road.

After a tedious, road-rage filled drive, I sprinted into the diner where I worked as a waitress and took my place outside the kitchens. It was only 9:20, maybe no one would notice…

My boss approached me five minutes later.

"Adrien, this is the third time this week!" I flinched at the name, but knew better to correct him. He didn’t have to say much more, I got the message. One more time, and I was fired. "You really are a good waiter, you know, but if you keep this up there really isn’t anything I can do."

I nodded. “Yes, sir.” I should be working harder at this job. It was a miracle they had accepted someone like me for the job anyways, and constantly being referred to as male was a small price to pay in the long run.

You see, I have the serious misfortune of being a transgender woman in a small town. Everyone knew, and everyone had something to say, whether I wanted to hear it or not.

After a few hours of smiling and acting overly nice for tips, along with some more unfortunate criticisms from the customers, I went home at 5 PM. I didn’t have much to do today other than fold some laundry, so I settled on the couch to get started, and flipped the TV on. The channel was a local news one, I remembered checking it briefly last night before bed. I was going to flip the channel to something new, when I saw something of interest flash across the screen.

"-Police have been noticing more and more cases of graffiti in strange places, on houses, the Fire & Ice Bristo, even all over the sidewalks! All new messages seem to contain the phrase ‘bad wolf’-"

I sat straight up, shoving the unfolded shirts to the side at the mention of the phrase, my dream replaying in fast forward at the front of my mind.

"Residents are asked now to worry, the police have several suspects and intend on disciplining whoever is caught. Now, over to Yolanda for the weather!"

I had paused the TV on an image of the graffiti, and I just stared at it in slight awe. The graffiti was in all of my favorite places, houses in my neighborhood of my friends, my favorite place to go for walks. It had to be a coincidence, something else to link these other than me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought ‘Huh. Too much TV for me, I’m starting to believe in freak coincidences.’

~0~

This was no coincidence.

That was my only thought as I stood in front of the diner the next morning.

The large plate glass window in the front of the restaurant had been smashed in, and from what I could see of the inside over the shoulders of the police trying to control the crowd, the words ‘Bad Wolf’ had been spray painted all over the back wall in shiny metallic golden letters. It had been written over and over, in all places except one. Just behind the hostess stand where I checked in every morning, was the word ‘archer’. This soon became my biggest problem, seeing as my last name on serious recurring graffiti and minor police track record didn’t really give me a free pass away from the cops, did it?

When ‘archer’ had been discovered, the police shooed away the crowd gathered outside the diner, and took me with them back to the station ‘just in case.’ I only got one call, to my friend, Valerie, who confirmed she would get me out of jail if necessary. I was twenty-one, I could handle myself.

When we finally arrived, they led me to an interrogation room. I hadn’t had the pleasure of experiencing one of these yet, so I couldn’t help but be a little bit excited. An officer, who told me his name was Davies, set up a small camera in front of me to record what I had to say.

"State your full name for the record please?" he asked.

"Sophia Caroline Archer" I stared into the camera, all but ignoring the officer.

He rolled his eyes and, knowing I wouldn’t say it, said “Adrien Chase Archer” loudly. Again, I ignored him.

"Would you care to tell me what you did today? All of it, starting from the beginning."

"I woke up at around 7:00 AM, got ready, had breakfast, whatever. I left to make my way over here at about 8:30. I saw the graffiti and was going to just go home for the day, it really wasn’t me who did it." Honestly, they really didn’t have reason to think I had done this. I had some parking tickets unpaid, and yeah, some stolen candy bars, but I was no artist. "Why is graffiti so important that you’re interrogating people?"

Officer Davies ignored me, smiling in a way that didn’t quite light up his eyes like a real smile would. “Have you seen this man?” He tossed me a photo and I studied it carefully.

The man was tall looking, mid-forties, with short dark hair. He wore a leather jacket with a dark blue tee underneath. His startlingly blue eyes seemed to cut their way through the glossy finish of the photograph to stare at me.

"Never. Who is he?" I asked.

"The Doctor. That’s all you need to know. How about this person? Do you know her?" He threw another photograph nonchalantly at my face. I caught it, and inhaled sharply at who it was.

Blonde hair, brown eyes, a pink hoodie. This was Bad Wolf.

"No, I’ve never seen her, either." I said. It wasn’t a lie, not really. They’d laugh if I told them about the dream, so it was pointless. Dreams didn’t matter in real life… Right?

Officer Davies frowned at this response, standing up and leaning on the table with one hand. “You see, Archer, we know you’re lying.” He smacked another photo down in front of me, a triumphant smirk on his slightly pig-like face.

It was of a restaurant, zoomed in to focus on a corner booth. I could just see the side of the man from the first photograph’s face, and Bad Wolf sitting next to him. That didn’t really surprise me, though. Who I saw with them surprised me even more. It was me, mid laugh at something one of them had said.

I could feel my heartbeat grow faster as I stared in disbelief at the photo in front of me. Thun-thun, it went. Thun-thun-thun-thun.

I looked up in anger. “I’ve never even been to that restaurant in my life! Much less, met these people! These pictures have got to be made up, I tell you with Photoshop or someth-“

"I think that’s quite enough, don’t you?" a cool feminine voice floated from the doorway. "Davies, put those damn pictures away, even I know you faked them. Sophia, if you’d like to come with me?"

I stood numbly, ambling over to where the woman was standing. A warm feeling fluttered up in my chest at my being addressed as a ‘she’ for once.

"I’m Captain Sylvia Dailey of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, or UNIT. I’m the one they call in when all hell breaks loose."

"Has all hell broken loose?" I ask.

"A bit." She smiles and begins to walk off out of the interrogation room and into a grey narrow hallway. I ignore the stares coming from various workers and catch up quickly.

"Why did Officer Davies fake those pictures? And, why was I just interrogated for graffiti? I didn’t even do it!"

"Because, he’s just as desperate as the rest of us. People find something they can’t explain, and they try to make an explanation themselves, that’s just how people are. It’s not about the graffiti; it’s about what it says."

We walk in silence for a few more feet while I contemplate the meaning behind her words. I decide to just not ask about the graffiti again, I was worried that if I asked too many why questions, it would seem more and more like I was the one to do it. Instead, I asked about the photos. “Who was she? The girl from the picture, I mean.”

"Her name’s Rose Tyler. She went missing from London in 2005. She reappeared exactly one year later, only to disappear again less than eight hours after. Of course, all hell broke loose in those eight hours, and I got called in, couldn’t track her. By the time I got back in, she was gone again. She hasn’t officially turned up since then."

"Officially?"

"There have been plenty of rumors, especially ones that say she is the heart of all this ‘bad wolf’ business. Rumors even say that she IS the Wolf."

"So UNIT’s investigating?" I was catching on quickly, I thought proudly. "But… Why’s she so special? Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you’re trying to find her, but I’ve never heard of UNIT before, so you can’t be run-of-the-mill police."

Captain Dailey grinned. “You catch on fast. I knew I liked you, kid. No, we’re not police, and Rose Tyler is potentially the most important girl in the universe.”

I couldn’t help being skeptical. “Why exactly would you think that, then?”

"That’s classified." With a cheeky smile and a swish of black hair, she was gone.

I followed her (Seems like I was doing a lot of that…) around the corner. “So, if UNIT isn’t police, what do they do?”

"We investigate anything abnormal. Space debris, unexplained events, aliens, anything that police can’t handle, which includes, if we’re being honest with ourselves, is mostly everything."

"Er… Did you just say aliens?" I asked tentatively.

She smiled. “Yes, I did. Want to meet one?”

~0~

Captain Dailey led me to a tiny room where she said that UNIT was based. Desks and chairs lined the walls, much like office cubicles. She headed straight for the back, a small open area with only one desk and a strange blue telephone box that said ‘POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX’ across the top. She ignored my cries of ‘an alien? in here?’ and ‘you’re crazy!’ and instead focused on looking around the room as if waiting for someone.

We were suddenly approached by a disheveled man, not wearing the standard UNIT soldier’s uniform, but a brown pinstriped suit and a light brown trench coat. Something about him radiated a sort of energetic feeling, like you could just get up and run a mile. He looked at me with an expression of pure curiosity.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well what?" I asked.

"They said you had a lead on Bad Wolf. What’ve you got?"

"I think you’ve got the wrong person, man. I’m just here because someone decided to spray paint my name on the wall of the diner where I work. Trust me, I’m not here by choice." I said.

"Doctor, we didn’t say she had a lead, we said she was our lead." Captain Dailey said.

The ‘Doctor’ frowned. “That’s rubbish, I was hoping for more than that, what’s she got to do with anything?”

"I am standing right here, you know?" I said with annoyance. "Who are you supposed to be, then?"

"Sorry. I’m the Doctor." ‘The Doctor’ didn’t sound very sorry at all.

"What? Doctor who?" I asked. They ignored me again.

As Captain Dailey and the Doctor started talking quietly among themselves, a thought dawned on me.

"Hey, didn’t Officer Davies say that that guy with the leather jacket was the Doctor?"

Both of their heads snapped around to stare at me.

"Just a thought…" I said pathetically in my defense.

The Doctor seemed interested, though. “What did this guy look like? The leather jacket guy?”

I described him, and the Doctor made an annoyed noise. “Yup, that’d be me.” he said.

"Er… sorry, what?" I asked.

"Me." He said.

"But that doesn’t make any sense…"

Captain Dailey didn’t seem very affected by this. “I told you you’d be meeting an alien today, Sophia.” she said.

I snorted. “What, him?”

"Yes, me!" He seemed offended. "No need to act so surprised, you just walked straight into the base of an organization that hunts aliens!"

"But you look human…"

"No, you look like a Time Lord." he insisted.

"Time lord?" I queried. "That isn’t much to go on, where’s some proof? Sounds ridiculously self-centered, as well. You’re the least lord-like person I’ve ever seen in my life, aside from the attitude. "

"I’ve got two hearts and a time machine." he boasted, smirking and appearing not to hear my comment on the name he had mentioned.

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “If you were an alien, why would you just tell us you’ve got a time machine? That’s not very smart.”

He frowned. “I’m the smartest person in this room.”

"See, there you go! Aliens aren’t ‘people.’"

"Depends on your definition of person." He rolled his eyes and turned around to Captain Dailey. "Are we ready to try it again?"

She nodded.

"Try what?" I asked. Again, I was ignored. It was probably a bad thing I was getting used to it.

"Quite right, too." Said the Doctor, facing the wall. I had no idea who he was talking to, until he started to flicker. We were on a beach. No, we were at UNIT… He was crying. A girl was crying. But who was she? I couldn’t see her, just a blur of skin and hair. Was she even real? No, maybe she was not. Then, how was she crying? Why was she crying? She loved him. He couldn’t speak. The stormy beach vanished, and I collapsed to the ground.

~0~

I awoke to Captain Dailey’s concerned face above me.

"What happened?" I asked.

She frowned. “I don’t know.”

I sat up and looked around, blinking away slight blurriness from passing out. I turned just in time to see the tail of the Doctor’s coat disappear into the weird blue telephone box of sorts in the back. I shakily stood, ignoring Captain Dailey’s protests that I needed to rest, and followed the Doctor inside. Time to get some real answers for once.

~0~

Impossible was the first word that came to my mind. The box had to have been only a yard across and a yard deep, about 8 feet tall.

This was not the box, It couldn’t be! I ran out the door, running my hands all around the edges band sides of the box, they were definitely there, definitely solid, definitely not what I had just seen. I ran back inside, to see the Doctor grinning at me from the middle of the room.

It was huge, the room. Round and in the shape of a dome, the ceiling had to have been 20 feet above my head. Huge sculptures, reminding me of oversized metal trees decorated around the perimeter of the room. Metal grating rattled under my feet as I took a hesitant step forward. The walls were made of huge golden panels, with lines of hexagonal shapes going all the way up. In the center of the room, a blue circular column seemed to dance up and down, casting the room in an unearthly blue light. Around the column was every type of switch or button you could ever hope for, and wires dangled from the ceiling. The Doctor stood at the column, which seemed to be some type of console, or steering mechanism.

"See?" he said proudly. "Time machine."

"…It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside…?" I said dumbly, eyes wide and taking in the wonder before me. "Oh my god, you are an alien."

"Now, what we are going to do with this time machine, what you are probably wondering, but too much in a state of shock to ask, is find Rose Tyler. Who is Rose Tyler? You’re also wondering this, I could tell from the minute you walked in. Up until recently, this place, this ship, was her home as well as mine. She travelled with me, through time and space, and we saw anything and everything the universe could throw at us."

"Why isn’t she here anymore, then?" I whispered, my brain working at a million miles an hour to try to process what was going on.

The Doctor seemed delighted. “Excellent! Most people don’t start talking for another five minutes! You’re taking this very well, I think. But, um, I think it would be easier if we talked outside, might be easier to, uh, think.” As he went on, he got more and more awkward. Something told me it was more than the distractingly huge room that he was thinking about.

He led me out the doors, where a smirking Captain Dailey stared at us both.

"Great, isn’t it? Doctor, we’ve got good news. This time, we managed to get a year for you! It’s 2006."

The Doctor frowned. “But that’s interesting, we’re in 2014 now, why we’re still here and alive is beyond me… I’ll be there in a minute, Captain, I’ve got a bit of explaining to do.” He gestured to me vaguely.

She nodded, and the Doctor sat me down at the lone desk at the back of the room, handing me a cup of tea he had gotten from one of the soldiers wandering about. I took it gratefully, and sipped a bit. Too much sugar, but it would do.

"You asked why Rose wasn’t with me anymore." The Doctor said.

I nodded.

"You see, travelling with me is dangerous." he said carefully. I had the distinct feeling he was avoiding the need to say something. "Sometimes, things happen, and something goes wrong."

"What happened to her?"

"She died."


	2. Beginning: BAD WOLF

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "H-hello? Is this on? Listen, the Doctor told me to give you this message. Your life may depend on this, please remember- Time is wrong. Rose Tyler is dead before her time, and time is slowly collapsing as a result. Me and a few others are working to fix that at the moment, but, please, please remember-" She’s gone. AU-ish of season 1 finale onward. Not DoctorXOC. (Transgender, lesbian, nonbinary characters.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to my lovely readers! I’m taking advantage of all these snow days to edit all these chapters, after this one I only have 3 to edit and post before I can write original stuff you haven’t seen before, so bear with me!
> 
> This chapter contains a panic/anxiety attack and an asthma attack. If you are triggered or uncomfortable reading these things, please skip this chapter. If you need a brief summary of what happened because you were unable to read this chapter, please, please message me, I’m more than happy to sum it up for you. Your mental health is always more important to me than read number.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy! This chapter was last edited on 2/18/15.

I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it. I could see in his eyes how much he missed her and how scared he was that he couldn’t do anything, and the most overwhelming fear of what would happen next.

"There’s something about the way you talk about her, Doctor. I don’t mean to pry but… She wasn’t just a friend to you, was she?" I regretted it the instant I closed my mouth. I should really learn to keep my mouth shut.

Something seemed to shift in the Doctor’s expression, his face going to a more neutral, void expression. “Yeah, maybe. Now, you’re probably wondering about the…” He flailed his arms desperately, trying in vain to pantomime what had happened to him. “…Thing. With all the weird… Stuff. And the beach.”

"How very articulate," I said dryly. "It all makes sense now."

The Doctor smiled at my little snark, before launching into his explanation. “You see, time is usually in flux. Anything can happen, with no fixed outcome or consequence. But every once in a while, there’s a fixed point, where something has to happen, a decision needs to be made, stuff like that. It helps keep the balance of the universe and whatnot, very boring, except even I can’t tell what’s going to happen, and that’s saying something.” He smiled cheekily. “If one tiny detail shifts within that fixed point, the whole of reality could implode.”

I frowned. “Is that what’s happening now? All sorts of stuff to do with time?”

"I keep forgetting you’re new to this, sorry if I’m a bit confusing. No, the whole time-and-universe-imploding bit is not happening quite yet. We’ve got about ten years until it happens fully, currently we’re dealing with the sort of… aftershocks, but they come before instead of after the main event, because there’s no time for the aftershocks to happen after time itself has been destroyed… Sort of like an earthquake backwards. There was a fixed point in Rose’s future, and we changed it somehow. Now we have to clean up this mess, and hopefully bring her back. The beach was a sort of flash forward, to what happened in the fixed point and what happens to us if we don’t fix something."

"So, do you know when the fixed point was supposed to happen?" I asked, trying to make sense of all the random information.

"That’s where things get complicated. If our instruments were even vaguely right, it was supposed to happen in 2006."

"But it’s 2014 now!"

"Yep. Like I said, complicated."

"Do you know anything about the fixed point? Or even, as you keep suggesting, how to fix it?" I asked.

"A few things. It involves a beach, something not good, and for all we know, it may even be two points, it’s so big. We need to fix it presumably by stopping Rose from dying, but we can’t, really, considering I was there. Going back in time and meeting yourself is one of the worst things you can do in time travel, except for cheap tricks. We would have to start by fixing the tiny things that Rose would have done had she lived, all the little adventures and lives saved first, to give this screwed up universe a sense of what was supposed to happen, so to speak, before saving her and snapping her back into the timeline." Something about the way he said this was hollow, and he wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

I suddenly noticed the pronouns he was using. For all we know, We need to fix… “Who’s ‘we?” I asked.

"Well, this isn’t exactly a one-man job, you know. I’m going to need help."

"Isn’t that what UNIT’s here for?" I knew that wasn’t what he meant from the look on his face, but I sincerely hoped I was wrong.

"Yes, UNIT’s great and all, but they aren’t who I need. The thing is, the phrase ‘Bad Wolf’ isn’t just a person, or thing. It’s a message, saying that Rose is near, or there’s something Rose needs. Your name can’t have been there on the wall alongside it as a coincidence. She means you to help, I think."

I swallowed. “What if that’s not what she was trying to say?”

"I’m pretty sure it is."

"It sounds dangerous." I never held well with danger, I couldn’t even going in the deep end of the pool until I was ten.

"It is, and I’m sorry that I have to ask you to do this. Honestly, I’m so, so sorry. But I need you to come."

"For how long? And why would she look at me for help? I can barely keep myself going these days." I asked. There had to be a way out of this, right?

"Depends on how you look at it. That box, that’s my time machine. We could be back ten seconds after we leave. On the other hand, I don’t know how long it would be for you and me. The thing with Rose is, she was truly brilliant. She saw the light in the most unexpected people. If she thinks you can do it, believe me, you can." The Doctor’s eyes shone as he spoke of her.

I bit my lip, hesitating as I answered. “I… don’t know. I have to think about it, I really can’t decide just now.” I was still processing ‘time machine’, if I was honest with myself.

He nodded understandingly. “I get that. Just… Don’t take too long. Keep in mind that reality is sort of falling apart.” I immediately felt guilty. I was worrying about my own safety, putting myself before everyone else, everywhere, when the whole of the universe was falling apart.

He walked off, ending up in very animated conversation with Captain Dailey, who seemed very opposed to something he was suggesting. I laughed a bit internally as she continued to yell at him, but my thoughts inevitably trailed back to the same thing.

Bad Wolf. What was it? She? I wasn’t so sure anymore. As far as I knew, it was some sort of …consciousness… a spirit maybe? It had to do with Rose. Rose had done something, something bad? Then Rose had died.

I didn’t even want to pretend to understand it, when it was so damn complicated! And my confusion of the rules of time wasn’t even brushing on the fact I had just been signed up for a journey across time and space, to go save planets. I sighed as the reality of this all sunk in. I was living in a sci-fi movie, and this had to be a dream. Naturally, I had never woken up this morning, and I was going to wake up and get fired for being late…again. I sighed, and, closing my eyes, focused on waking up.

Nothing happened. I opened my eyes seconds later, expecting to be in my bedroom, but I was still in the same plastic chair, in the same building, and the Doctor was still across the room. Damn.

I pinched myself. It hurt. I slapped my arm. Ow. I felt the beginnings of real panic seep into the edges of my mind and focused on breathing. I couldn’t have a panic attack, not now, not here. I breathed in for seven seconds, hold for four, out in five. I spelled the words in my mind, focusing on the letters. S-E-V-E-N. F-O-U-R. F-I-V-E. I felt better, but still panicky.

"You alright?" A calm voice barely registered, but I only nodded out of habit, not really meaning it.

The Doctor asked me again. “You sure? You look a little nervous, and trust me, I don’t blame you a bit. S’ a lot to take in. I’m sorry for sort of dumping everything on you earlier-“

I was about to open my mouth to reply, to say he didn’t have to apologise, maybe make a self-deprecating joke or two, when the room started shaking.

~0~

When I stood up, bits of ceiling plaster fell off of my shoulders. I let out a choked cough and looked around, lights began to flicker back on dimly, and computers began to restart. As the monitors restarted, white writing began to flash across the blue screens, typing themselves out even with no one near the keyboards. badwolfbadwolfbadwolfbadwolfwadwolfbadwolf… It was neverending.

My eyes were wide and coughs were stealing the air from my lungs as I choked on dust. I couldn’t breathe, my eyes were watering, I-

A pair of arms wrapped around my shoulders and waist, guiding me to the back of the room, waving the dust away from my face, making sure I didn’t choke. The dust began to clear and The Doctor’s dust-covered face was right there.

"Now or never, we need to go. There’s nothing we can do to help them, and we need to get you out of here." he muttered, pulling open the blue doors with the one hand not supporting me and pulling me inside with him.

I couldn’t fight it with the lack of air in my lungs, and I grappled uselessly at my side for my bag, where I kept an emergency inhaler for asthma attacks, only to realize that the police had taken it as I had come in. It was still inside. I motioned wildly, attempting to mime an inhaler and a bag, pointing outside. It took a moment, but the Doctor put on a mask, like the kind you would see on sick people at a hospital or perhaps a construction worker working with sawdust, or somewhat of a mix between the two, and he ran back out.

He returned a minute or two later with a whole box, containing all the possessions that had been taken from me when I had entered the building, including my bag. I reached down into it, anxiety surging for a moment as I couldn’t find the inhaler, before my fingers clasped around a plastic cylinder. I held it to my mouth shakily and pressed the button at the back, breathing in heavily. I felt my airways clear a bit, and added a second breath of the medicated air, before putting the tube down on the grated metal floor and just leaning against the metal wall, breathing heavily, but deeply. The Doctor was crouched next to me, making sure I was still alright, watching my breathing as it slowed and steadied.

It took fifteen minutes of slow breathing and sitting still in silence, but soon I was breathing normally, and I started to move to stand up, but the Doctor stopped me.

"Just sit there for a little while longer. You’ll be fine, I promise. We’re not in any trouble here."

"But the people at UNIT…" My voice rasped and cracked, and I winced at the sound.

"They’ll be fine. Just focus on yourself for a minute."

"We just left them…"

"Shh. I promise, they’re fine. I’m going to show you to a place you can sleep alright? Asthma attacks don’t go away in fifteen minutes. You need to rest this off."

I sighed and nodded, allowing him to help me up, slowly shuffling down a hallway and into a white bedroom. I was in no state to stay awake, or observe the details of the room. I sat down on the bed, lowering myself down into a comfortable position and shutting my eyes. The Doctor hadn’t even left the room yet when I started to snore.


	3. Something Lost: Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Triggers: mention of dysphoria. as usual, let me know if you would like a brief summary of this chapter so you can know what happens in a trigger-free way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers: mention of dysphoria. as usual, let me know if you would like a brief summary of this chapter so you can know what happens in a trigger-free way.

CHAPTER 3

The plastic men were going to kill me. I knew that much.

What I didn’t know was how I had gotten here, or where here even was. Who was I? Where was I? Where was the Doc-

The thought drifted away the minute I had thought it.

The plastic men weren’t students, as I had originally thought. The plastic wasn’t a costume, or a disguise at all, it seemed. And they weren’t slowing down, just getting closer and closer…

I backed up, anything to get away from the creepy things and their hollow plastic eyes. As I backed up further and further, I felt my legs hit something solid; cool metal. The one nearest me raised its hand to strike and I shut my eyes tight…

… My wrist was grabbed by a large, warm, non-plastic hand. I turned just in time to see a man in a leather jacket drag me out of the way of the plastic man’s crushing blow.

“Run” he said, a manic gleam shining in his eyes.

~0~

The dream left me sitting straight up in bed, sweat pouring down my face.I didn’t know where I was. I clambered out of the bed with great difficulty- it was higher than the one I slept on at home. My eyes darted around the new setting, taking in what I could and trying to remember how I had gotten here.

The white walls of the circular room were lined with every type of book I could imagine, with dark oak wood trimming the bookshelves. Six slim columns reached up like branches from equal distances around the room to meet at the top of the glass domed ceiling. Outside, I could see the night sky, with more stars than I had ever seen in my life. I was frozen for a moment, mouth agape, staring at the sky. My socks sunk into white fluffy carpet, and I spotted my shoes by the door. Door! I raced towards it, pulling it open and smashing straight into the Doctor. A hot liquid splashed all over me and I heard a crash, and fell back onto the fluffy carpet.

Suddenly the events of what could have been the previous day (How long had I been asleep?) came rushing back to me. Work. Bad Wolf. The graffiti. UNIT. The beach. The Doctor. My head spun and I picked myself up off the floor where I had fallen after running into the Doctor. I groaned, clutching at my elbow, I had banged it against the doorframe trying to get out. The Doctor was picking himself up as well.

“What was that for?” he complained.

I blushed a bit. “Sorry. I got confused and couldn’t remember where I was. Let me help-” I rushed over, noticing that he had dropped something, probably some sort of soup from the looks of it. Whatever it was, had gotten all over me as well.

“It’s alright, I got it…” He leaned over and picked up the bowl, which was thankfully unshattered. “The TARDIS can clean the carpet later, it’s not important. How are you feeling?”

I still felt bad. “I’m… better, I guess. What do you mean, the TARDIS will clean it up?”

He chuckled. “She’s slightly sentient. Can do loads of stuff.”

“This place is pretty big. I don’t even remember seeing the hallway when I came in the first time.”

“She’s infinite. Anything could be in here, and it’s always changing. That’s half of the fun! Now, I had brought you some soup, but…” He stared down at the carpet. “How about we go get something from the kitchens instead?”

“I should probably get changed first,” I said, motioning down at my soup-stained clothes. “Sorry to ask, but is there anything I could change into?”

He nodded, pointing to his left down the hall. “Three rights, a left at the bowling alley, and two more doors down is the wardrobe, last I checked. If you need anything, just ask the TARDIS, it’ll feel weird to do, like talking to an empty room, but she can understand when you say things.”

I nodded, briefly thanking him and running off down the hall.

~0~

He certainly wasn’t wrong, but the room was not what I’d describe as a ‘wardrobe’. It was massive, with at least three floors that I could see and clothes for every past time period I could think of and some unrecognisable ones I guessed were for the future.

In other words, it was the coolest place I had seen in my entire life.

I wandered towards the feminine clothes, admiring all of the gorgeous shimmering gowns and floral skirts that I could never pull off with my curveless masculine figure.

Sighing, I settled for a pair of dark wash skinny jeans that barely fit with a comfy red hoodie. I stepped over to the mirror after I was done changing and frowned. I had forgotten to take off my bra in my sleep and must have rolled over and flattened the tissue padding I usually used to give the illusion of breasts. I quickly turned away from the mirror, cutting off the incoming wave of body dysphoria at my reflection that looked so, so, so unlike me.

Back at home, I had been saving up to get surgery, and just stuffing bras with tissues and hoping for the best in the meantime. I hated it. Money was tight, and on a waitresses salary and no outside help or donations, it really wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.

I briefly glanced up and wondered. The Doctor had said I could ask the TARDIS for anything I needed, right?

“Do you, uh, have a box of tissues or something?” I felt stupid asking, but there was a faint buzz in the back of my mind, and when I turned around, the shoes on a nearby table had been replaced with large foam pads, perfectly sized to fit in a bra. My jaw dropped. I fucking loved this place.

~0~

I arrived back at my room almost skipping, I felt more confident than I had in a long time. The faint buzz in my mind had stayed with me, and I assumed that it had something to do with the TARDIS’s sentience, maybe it was telepathic? I grinned at the thought. Weird, but cool as hell. There was a note taped to my door with instructions leading to the kitchen.

I arrived there still smiling so hard I thought my face was going to fall off.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen, grinning like an idiot and throwing an overenthusiastic ‘Hello’ in the Doctor’s general direction.

He looked mildly shocked, whether it was at my mood or outfit, I wasn’t sure. I had changed out of the hoodie and instead wore a black tank top with major American city names in flowery block print.

“You seen happy,” He commented, spooning out a portion of soup from off the stovetop. “It’s chicken noodle, bye the way. Just like back on Earth.”

“I love your ship.” I announced. “Haven’t had chicken noodle soup in, like, forever, thanks. Are we not on Earth anymore?”

“She seems to like you too. Uh, you might have noticed that there’s a sort of buzzing, almost in the back of your mind, that’s the TARDIS. She has a weak telepathic signal, she can use it to translate alien languages for you and help you find what you need. It’s not invasive or anything, though, she can’t read any of your thoughts unless they’re directly towards her.”

“That’s cool. Anything else, specifically, that she can do?” I asked.

“Infinite, telepathic, bigger on the inside… what more could you want?” The Doctor smiled, and I knew he was joking.

“Not much, I guess.”

We both sipped on our soup in silence for a moment, before I spoke up again. “I guess it’s official that I’m coming with you on this now.”

The Doctor considered what to say for a minute. “I’m sorry that there wasn’t really a choice. It was either bring you in or let you stay there and choke on your own lungs.”

I shrugged. “I probably would’ve come with you anyways. It’s fine.” I shook my head lightly as if to shake away the small pain that had started up in my temples. “So what’s the first stop on our universe-saving adventure?”

The Doctor probably had said something, but whatever it was, I didn’t hear, as the pain in my head had suddenly gone off the charts of anything I had ever felt before, and I passed out on the counter.

~0~

I was dreaming. Wasn’t I? I was on a cloud, it seemed, all pink and fluffy. I didn’t look off the edge, fearful of what I might find there. There was a girl a ways ahead of me, with a face so familiar that I could swear I knew her. Her blonde hair curled to her shoulder blades, and her clothing was tan and a bit torn up around the knees of her skirt, like something with huge claws had slashed right through.

“Do I know you?” I asked anxiously.

She smiled and her caramel eyes blazed golden. I blinked and it was gone. “You do. But I’ve made you forget.”

I had to admit, I was a bit startled. “What? How could you make me forget?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does! I know that I know you, but I can’t put my finger on it! What’s your name?”

“My name isn’t what you need to know. You need to know about the Doctor. You’re worried that he isn’t trustworthy, that something bad will happen to you under his care.”

I had no words, just gaped slightly.

“You’re right. Something bad will happen-has happened-or is it happening?”

“Why am I here? Did I get drugged or something?”

“You’re here because I brought you.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you need to know to trust the Doctor.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he has been-will be-is my best friend, and only hope.”

Images start to flood my mind, of a hospital and of a castle, and an ordinary suburban neighborhood. My head burns, and I crumple to the ground, more images pouring into my mind. The Doctor smiling over his shoulder. Pulling someone from harm’s way. Sacrificing his safety for others. Being… Amazing. There’s no other adequate word for it, really.

“You’ll forget now. Everything except the trust. I can leave that,” The girl said quietly. “I almost don’t want you to go. The things you will go through, Adrian, I’m so sorry.”

I frowned. “Don’t call me that. I don’t know how the hell you know about it, but my name is Sophia and I don’t want to forget.”

She smiled sadly. “Like I said, the trust will stay, but I’ll be forgotten. Bye, Adrian.”

I didn’t get a chance to correct her.

~0~

I awoke slowly, the way I would on a lazy Sunday morning, all eyes fluttering and wishing I could just go back to sleep, then it hit me. What had just happened? I had been fine, then my headache had flared up, and… I must’ve passed out. My blurred eyes finally registered The Doctor gently shaking my shoulder, trying to get me to wake up fully. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, thousands of questions whirred past at lightning speed, but I forgot them. I looked up at the Doctor as if seeing him for the first time. I trusted him. I didn’t know how or why, and whenever I tried to think about it it slipped away like a summer breeze.

“Hello,” I said, still a bit dazed. “I seem to be doing this a lot today, falling asleep, nearly dying.”

A little smirk flashed across his features for a moment. “Yeah, it’s a bit unhealthy, really. What happened?”

“I dunno, I just… A headache or something, I forget.”

He frowned at this. “Come on, we can head down to the infirmary, you might have a concussion or something. Can you stand up?”

I nodded, slowly rising and feeling a pain in the back of my head as I did so. “Headache’s still there. Do you have some aspirin or something?”

He shook his head. “Not aspirin, no, I’m allergic. I can find something else for you, though.”

We made it to the med room and he checked my head, declaring that I did not have a concussion, but should probably take it easy for a few hours. He gave me a small blue bottle with a slightly glowing blue syrup in in that he claimed would help with the pain and fix the bruise on my head faster.

I took it eagerly, feeling relieved as the headache dulled in a few moments.

“So, like I was saying before my headache so rudely interrupted, what’s the first stop on our universe-saving trip?”

“How do you feel about a little bit of an adventure?”


	4. Croatoan: Day One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "H-hello? Is this on? Listen, the Doctor told me to give you this message. Your life may depend on this, please remember- Time is wrong. Rose Tyler is dead before her time, and time is slowly collapsing as a result. Me and a few others are working to fix that at the moment, but, please, please remember-" She’s gone. AU-ish of season 1 finale onward. Not DoctorXOC. (Transgender, lesbian, nonbinary characters.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! New chapter for you all tonight :)   
> Triggers: Transphobia, misgendering You know the drill, ask for a summary if you can't read because of triggers. Best place to do so is at my tumblr, the-sleepdeprived.tumblr.com  
> This chapter was last edited on 3/10/15.

CHAPTER 4 CROATOAN-DAY 1

“What sort of adventure, exactly?” I asked, putting one hand on my hip. “I figured that most of the time we would be in here, doing... I don’t know, math-y equation stuff. Fixing the universe and all.”  
“Well, it sort of fits in with saving everything… We need to stabilize the paradoxes that Rose left behind, fill in all the gaps where she should have been there. This one isn’t necessarily a paradox, but from what I can tell, in the alternate timeline, Rose was here, and saved a lot of lives. We can go in, fix it, then move on to the bigger stuff. Sort of like a test run, I guess,” the Doctor said.  
“Where are we going?” I stood, and followed the Doctor down the winding hallways back to the console room.  
“From what I can guess, San Francisco, America. As for when, about 1906, April. I’m not sure what’s meant to happen that we’re supposed to fix, so we’ll just have to show up and figure it out for ourselves.”  
The past. My head hummed and there was an airy, swooping feeling in my chest. Anyone can live in the present, and you’ll grow up to see the future. But the past? That’s something no one can ever see. I was mostly silent as the Doctor got the TARDIS going, but on the inside, I was freaking out, to say the least. The wheezing of engines sounded, and we were off. The room bounced around, significantly more than last time, before finally coming to a rest only a few minutes later.  
The Doctor went to open the doors, when I looked down at myself. “Won’t jeans and a tank top cause a bit of a fuss in the early 1900s?” I asked, amused.  
The Doctor looked back, a bit put out. “Unless you want to put up with a corset, do what you want.” I looked down at myself, pondering for a moment. There was no way in hell I could pull off a corset while still passing, but I felt odd that I would be going to the past so plainly dressed.   
“One second,” I called, and ran back to the wardrobe, pulling on a blue flowing dress that I had seen earlier, then running back to the console room.  
“How do I look?” I asked, giving a tiny twirl.  
He nodded, beaming. “You look lovely. Now, come on! Adventures await, and all that!”  
I once again directed my attention to the large wooden doors.  
The Doctor pushed them outwards, and it seemed we were in a different world.  
One would expect something out of an old photograph, black and white and frozen in time. The city in front of me was huge, colorful, and bustling. Old automobiles lined the streets, and I could see a movie theatre on the corner, decorated with old-fashioned broadway-style lighting. People were on street corners, women dressed in frilly long dresses- and yes, what appeared to be corsets. Already, some passing couples looked at me in shock. I suddenly felt ridiculously self-conscious, biting my lip. Maybe the past wasn’t the best idea.  
The Doctor appeared beside me, appearing not to notice the stares and grinning away madly as usual.  
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, taking in the posters stapled to a nearby post and their pastel colors and cartoon-like figures. A newspaper rolled past on a bit of breeze, and I picked it up and checked the date. Sure enough, it was April 17, 1906. The headlines were nothing significant, just gossip tabloids and something about the President. It was with a jolt that I remembered this was America, not England. I chuckled under my breath- I’d always wanted to come here, and now I didn’t even have to plan the trip!  
“What now? Look for trouble?” I asked the Doctor, only half joking.  
“That’s just about it, yeah.”  
“Cool.” I was about to step out onto the sidewalk when the Doctor stopped me.  
“They aren’t going to be nice, you know.”  
“I know.”  
“Just keep your chin up and ignore them, alright?” I nodded in agreement. This was the first time the Doctor had addressed the fact I was trans. I was kind of glad, it was nice to just be treated like a person for once.   
As it turned out, there was not actually much to do in 1906 San Francisco, other than walk around and see the sights. It was almost 10 PM and we were about to go back to the TARDIS for a better reading of when and where the supposed trouble would be happening when we stumbled across the orphanage.  
It was rather cool looking, actually. It was made of stone, and almost looked like a cathedral, with all of the statues and arches it had on the outside. From the windows, a warm golden light shone out, defying the stereotype of cold, dark, and empty children’s homes. This one seemed warm, welcoming, and silhouettes of children could be seen through the upper floor windows.  
The Doctor and I paused a moment, admiring the building. The Doctor spouted off some babble about architecture and Rome, and I admit, I wasn’t really listening too hard. We were turning to leave at the end of the Doctor’s rant, when all of the lights went off. The golden glow from the windows disappeared, and every streetlight on the road flickered a few times each, before winking out.  
I had expected shouts, frustrated cries from the annoying power cut, but there was absolute silence. With all the lights on the street out, I could only see a few feet, to where the Doctor stood. He frowned, looking around in confusion. For a full minute, the silence remained. Finally, we heard a noise, but it wasn’t exactly comforting. A single screech of a bird rang out from overhead, and the power flipped back on. The silence returned.  
The Doctor pulled a leather wallet from his suit pocket, making for the orphanage. He pulled on the knocker, and the sound seemed to echo throughout the street. Still, silence was our only answer. He motioned me forwards, and he felt at the doorknob. Naturally, it was locked. He reached for a small silver cylinder he had earlier described to me as a ‘sonic screwdriver’ (Apparently, it could open almost anything) and the knob fell apart in his hands at the press of a button and the glow of a tiny blue light.  
He grimaced at the mess he had made of the knob, mouthing a quiet ‘oops’ before slowly creeping inside, with me close behind.  
On the inside, everything was exactly as it seemed from the outside. All of the lights were out, giving what must have usually been a warm and welcoming entranceway a spooky feeling. My sandals squeaked against the tile, and I almost felt like I was violating the silence that wrapped itself like a warm blanket around my ears.  
“Hello?” the Doctor called out, and I rolled my eyes. We would be so dead in a horror movie right now. Nevertheless, there was no reply.  
The Doctor produced a flashlight from his pocket (how big were they, anyway?) and shined it through the halls, but the light only lasted a few seconds before flickering out. He frowned, shaking it and tapping it against his palm. “Some sort of energy drain?” he muttered, pocketing the flashlight once more.  
We hadn’t taken another step yet when the lights came back on, soon followed by several people materializing into the hall with us. Immediately, several women (and a man) swooned, while terrified murmurs swept through the rest of the crowd.   
The Doctor, of course, stepped forwards first, offering a huge grin and a wave to the nearest woman, who appeared to be a maid of some sort, with the sort of traditional black and white frilly outfit that defined old-timey maids further proving the theory.  
“Hello, I’m the Doctor. Do you know what’s going on around here?  
Her bright blue eyes widened ridiculously, her breath escaping in short gasps. “They’ve taken the children.”  
~0~  
Well, wasn’t that cliché as hell?  
I caught the woman around the waist as she began to fall, struggling and eventually letting her slump to the floor forcefully, despite my attempts to slow her descent. The Doctor had already started questioning the other people, who I now noticed were all adults. I ignored the stares in my direction once again, putting the care of the nurse into the hands of a more steady-looking woman, who despite the fear in her wide eyes, appeared to be in no danger of fainting.  
The Doctor soon returned, confirming that they all had said the same. He hopped on top of a reception desk of some sort, grabbing everyone’s attention.   
“You’ve all told me that ‘they’ took the children, but I need to know, who are they?” He looked around desperately at the crowd, who had now gone silent. A man from the back looked both ways and spoke quietly.  
“There were bird men. They told us to stay quiet and not call authorities. Who are you?”  
The Doctor considered this statement for a moment. “Thank you. I’m the Doctor, here to help. I’ll get the children back.” As murmurs of disbelief circled the crowd, he approached me and we went back outside. He lifted his sonic screwdriver to the sky. “I’m scanning for any communication signals, to see if there are any spaceships up there.  
“I thought it opened doors? What, you think it’s aliens?”  
“It can. It can just do this too. And from my experience, it usually is. Have you ever heard of bird-people on Earth before?”  
He had a point. “Alright, what can I do to help?”  
“This should only take a few minutes, you can go inside and try to calm people down. You seem like the type that’s good at that stuff. I’ll be inside in a second, when I’m done.”   
I nodded, pushing my way once more through the heavy wooden doors. I saw that the blonde nurse from earlier had woken up, and was leaning against a wall, trying to regain her bearings. I went over and sat down next to her.   
She looked me up and down, taking in my clothes and appearance, before cautiously muttering a greeting.  
“I’m Sophia.” I said, giving a small smile I hoped was comforting. Why on Earth had the Doctor thought I should do this? I was one of the most unsympathetic people I knew.  
“Ruth” she replied curtly, looking me up and down again. “Sophia’s a bit of an odd name for a man, isn’t it? And the dress...” She scowled.  
I stiffened immediately. The inevitable... “I’m not a man.”  
Ruth opened her mouth again, but I was saved from the resulting argument when an overexcited Doctor bounced my way and pulled me outside again.  
As soon as the cool night air touched my skin, I slapped his hand off me, glaring. I hated it when people grabbed me, especially when I was pissed off.  
The Doctor appeared not to notice, though. “Five spaceships, straight up.”  
“Seriously? What can we do about it?”  
“We should get back to the TARDIS, try to figure out who they are, and what they want. We have to be careful, we never know where they might pop up next.”


	5. Croatoan: Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: none.  
> There is abseloutley no excuse for my lateness on this chapter. Sorry :(  
> Happy Trangender Visibility Day!  
> (you all don't know, but I'm a trans boy :0 i just today came out on most of my social media so some love would be nice :)

Chapter 5- Croatoan, Day 2

The golden glow of the TARDIS was a small comfort to me, I sat off to the side in the nook of one of the coral structures that decorated the room, leaning back with my eyes closed. I was quietly fuming, angry with the Doctor for sending me into a situation that ended with me getting misgendered. I knew that he couldn’t have known, but I was still mad. I calmed a bit when I remembered what we were doing, and I couldn’t really be mad at the Doctor for something like this when there was a lot to be done. I felt the fear finally creep up my spine, slipping from the top of my shoulders in a shiver. Those kids... God knows what was being done to them right now. I would talk to the Doctor later.   
The Doctor was hovering over a mess of buttons and tiny screens, banging on them with a hammer every so often, which seemed to help somehow. It was when he was doing this that I saw how old he seemed. The tiny wrinkles on his forehead seemed more pronounced, and his eyes were tired. I wondered, not for the first time, how many times he had done this, how many people he had saved this way.   
“I’ve got their location within about a hundred miles, just another minute and we can go get those kids.” he mumbled.  
I stood, briefly stretching my arms before pulling on my shoes (I had kicked them almost to the other side of the room earlier,) and gripped tightly onto a railing to avoid being thrown around when we finally started moving- not that it ended up helping much.   
I stood and shook my head, trying to get rid of the haze of motion sickness that clouded my vision and made a knot in my stomach.   
“Do you plan on ever flying this thing right?” I groaned.  
The Doctor chose to ignore this. He waited at the door for me, and when I arrived, looked me straight in the eyes. “This is where it gets dangerous. Last chance to back out?”  
He had been asking me all throughout his calculations whether I really wanted to come with him onto the ship to help get the children out, telling me I could just wait on the TARDIS and help them when they got back. Every time, I had refused to back out. Face your fears, that’s what my personal motto was. Of course, I hadn’t anticipated aliens at the time I had made it up, but I was determined to stick to it nonetheless.   
I shook my head determinedly, making a move towards the doors. “You’re stuck with me.”  
The ship was pretty incredible, though it had nothing on the TARDIS. Everything was streamlined and silver, with a bit of teal light radiating from the floor providing the only visibility. A white panel labeled with a writing that looked like a series of complex scratchy lines was visible at a corner ahead, but a tiny warm nudge in my head told me it was a direction to the control room. Looks like the TARDIS could still send telepathic messages even when I wasn’t inside.  
We hadn’t been out the TARDIS doors for more than a few seconds before the Doctor recognised the ship’s design.   
“It’s a Asketan ship. Standard design, fairly common across this galaxy, but not for a long, long time, so this must be a sort of prototype. I was good friends with the species that builds these, but I’m not sure they’ll recognise me...” he trailed off, before quickly snapping to his senses again. “Right. We ought to find the command center. Sign says this way, come on!”  
I held out an arm to stop him from skipping off too soon. “So the plan is just to dive straight in?”   
He nodded.  
I shrugged, letting him go, and we finally left the dim hallway, following the white signs to a door that was sea green and had a pattern resembling what it would look like if a computer threw up its guts all over a sheet of metal. The Doctor scanned it briefly with his sonic screwdriver, and it split into four panels, which slid back into the wall, forming a square entrance.  
I’m not going to lie, the first thing I thought as I entered the command center was definitely Star Trek. Seriously! It was mostly white, with blue touchscreen panels lining the walls and a big comfy captain’s chair in the middle. I was getting serious flashbacks of that time my dad and I had marathoned Star Trek all night, about a year before I told them...  
Nevermind. Don’t think of him. Not worth it. I took a brief moment to remember that I was living a new life, far, far away from those scumbags that happened to be my parents.   
Jesus, Sophia. of all the things to think about on a spaceship...  
I shushed my inner monologue and got a good look at the aliens.   
They were humanoid in shape, two legs, two arms, a head, but the similarities stopped there. Instead of skin, they were covered in a thin feather-like fur, ranging in colors from tawny to grey to even jet black. They had what could count has hair, long feathers sprouting from their scalp and reaching to their shoulders or further in shades of mostly red and blue, with a bit of green as well. They each had two antennae sprouted from their forehead, only a few inches long and the same color as the rest of their bodies, but I have to say the most incredible thing about them was the wings.   
Thin and almost paper like, the wings folded up smoothly against the backs of the creatures, and I almost hadn’t seen them until a jet-black creature (who seemed to be in charge) let out a loud screech at a small light brown creature at his feet and spread its wings wide. It really was a beautiful sight.   
While I gaped at the creatures, the Doctor decided to make our presence known.   
“Kroaloans.” he shouted. “That’s your name, isn’t it? From the planet Ichor, in the Gaan system.”  
The creatures seemed to freeze, and slowly, we were faced by around fifty pairs of yellow and green eyes.  
“My name is the Doctor,” he continued on when he felt he had the room’s attention. “I’m here on behalf of the planet Earth, and according to code 8612/X of the Shadow Proclamation, you have to return the children you have kidnapped and leave this planet’s airspace immediately!”  
Even I knew how ridiculous that had sounded. We were two people, standing in front of a crowd of about 50 aliens bigger than us, demanding they do something with no real authority or position of power other than a bunch of numbers and letters.  
Of course they were going to throw us in jail.  
~0~  
“Nice plan, Doctor,” I remarked, rubbing at the silver band around my neck that the Kroaloans had put on, somehow it kept us from leaving the white square room we were currently in. Something to do with force fields, I hadn’t really been paying attention. I couldn’t help it, my mind just zoned out when it came to anything to do with math or science.  
He chose to ignore my comments, pressing an ear to the smooth white wall and recoiling when it shocked him. He scowled at it, before turning back to me. “Maybe this was part of the plan.”  
I simply stared at him.  
“Okay, maybe not part of the plan. But at least, now we have time to figure out what to do now that we know what we’re up against.”


End file.
